


Paint

by tolakasa



Series: This Christmas Day 'verse [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Future, Christmas, Disabled Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-08-20
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:23:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tolakasa/pseuds/tolakasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag for "This Christmas Day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paint

The back driver’s side door slammed so hard that Dean winced, and a box fell off the stack of opened presents piled in the back seat to land in the floorboards. He hoped that hadn’t been one of the breakable ones. Marcy would skin Sam alive.

And at that, it had been safer to load the Impala with presents instead of kids, no matter how much Ananda had whined. Her sudden obsession with her uncle was worrying. Amusing as hell, but worrying.

“Not a word,” Sam ordered, sliding behind the wheel and giving the driver’s door another car-shaking slam. His hand was shaking so bad he could barely get the key in the ignition.

“Me?” Dean asked innocently. At least now he could look at Sam without immediately laughing. Mostly. “I’m sorry, man. I forgot you’d never done the Reynolds Christmas madhouse solo.” Sam glared at him, and Dean raised his hands in mock surrender. “I swear, Sammy, if I’d remembered, I would have _told_ you not to sit on the floor. Or at least I would’ve pointed you towards the boys’ corner.”

Sam had pulled the barrettes out of his hair, and the makeup, being doll makeup, had scrubbed off easily enough, but his nails were still a shimmery dark blue. (Marcy had promised him access to nail polish remover as soon as they got back to the house. Dean had noted that his beloved wife had _not_ mentioned giving Sam access to anything else—like, say, cotton balls.) But Courtney and Jenn had pulled out the face paint to keep the kids occupied between dinner and presents, and nothing would do for the girls except that their favorite new mannequins got painted too, so now there were several tiny elves sledding and skiing down a snowbank made out of Sam’s scar and a ski lodge perched on one eyebrow, with a snowy forest for background.

Courtney really was talented. Especially when you considered that she’d been working around Ananda, who had decided the best way to force her uncle to cooperate was to sit in his lap and refuse to move until they _both_ had painted faces.

“I look ridiculous,” Sam grumbled, slamming the Impala into gear.

“First, you’re _way_ past ridiculous, and second, quit abusing my car.” Sam glared, which made the sledding elf in the middle of his forehead wriggle. Dean managed to choke the laughter into a cough. “Why do you think we exiled you and Hannah to the kiddie table? None of us could stay quiet more than a minute. Third was afraid we were _all_ going to choke.”

“Oh. I thought it was because Ananda wouldn’t let go of me.”

“No, that’s why you wound up at the _girls’_ table.” That got him another glare and another elf-wriggle. Dean tried not to laugh again, and this time wound up in a _real_ coughing fit. It seemed to make Sam feel better, anyway. “Did you and Hannah have fun?” Dean asked, when he got his lungs back under control.

“We got makeovers from five-year-olds and got stuck eating at the kiddie table and then they made me get my face painted. What do you think?”

“That it was an excellent opportunity for you two to get to know each other,” Dean replied blandly.

“Before or after Ananda crawled into my lap and ate my dinner?”

“Both?” Wait a minute. “You let Ananda eat your dinner?”

“Did I have a choice?” Sam growled.

“Well, yeah.” Was this one of those things that was only obvious to parents? “You could’ve parked her in _her_ chair in front of _her_ plate while _you_ were eating.”

Sam held up his hand. There were four evenly-spaced marks in it. “Your darling daughter stabbed me with a fork.”

Of course. Assault with cutlery _would_ be the one thing Ananda had learned from Rissa. “Why didn’t you come get—”

Sam held up the other hand. Another set of marks. “ _These_ are from your sister-in-law. Something about how her niece _deserved_ my cranberry sauce.”

“She’s your niece too.” That was all he could manage without losing it—and to do that much, he had to stab his housekey into his leg where Sam couldn’t see it. He was going to have a bitch of a bruise. “You have _got_ to learn how to handle the kids better, Sammy, seriously. They’re not going to break. Or break you.”

“This from the man who told them this morning that I was part of their Christmas present?”

“You wanted me to try to explain to a roomful of present-crazed pre-teens why you’re suddenly single, unemployed, and living in the guest room? On _Christmas morning?_ I’m good, Sam, but I ain’t _that_ good.” Sam made a noise that Dean chose to interpret as skeptical. “Maggie, Johnny, and Kevin are the only ones old enough to understand, and me and Marcy told them, first thing. The rest’ll figure it out in their own time. And just because they’re kids doesn’t mean you can’t tell them it’s none of their business.” He paused, but couldn’t resist. “Except for Ananda, who seems to really, really, _really_ like her Uncle Sammy.”

Sam actually _snarled_ at him.

“Don’t think that’ll stop her for a minute,” Dean said promptly. “And that was our turn you just missed, dumbass.”

“It was? Damn.”

“There’s an intersection in about a mile, you can turn there. Unless you’re just trying to run away.”

“Don’t tempt me.” That came out fairly sharp, and Dean flinched. Maybe Marcy was right, and this _was_ a little much for Sam’s first day as an official resident of the asylum. But hell, if Sam had just come here in the _first_ place, instead of wandering off to Lawrence, he would’ve had a few weeks to adjust and not gotten slammed facefirst into the Christmas madness.

Sam got the car turned around, and they were heading home again. “Dean—” Sam sounded worried. “The one with the camera—”

“Kim. Honestly, Sam, it’s been ten years, you should have caught on to _some_ of the names by now.”

“In _that_ mob? I can barely keep up with your kids’ names, Dean, you want me to keep track of your seventy in-laws?”

Dean refused to take _that_ bait. “I think we’re actually at about a hundred and fifty now, if you count Marcy’s aunts and uncles.”

Sam ignored that. “She’s not actually going to _do_ anything with those pictures, is she?”

This was so _not_ the time to tell the poor boy that Third had a photo printer in his study. Or that Marcy and her siblings were _all_ pissed at Hannah for not supplying proper pictorial evidence for her life for the last, oh, ten years. “Of course not,” Dean lied, trying to make his voice soothing. Sam didn’t _need_ to know that Marcy alone already had three copies, or that Mike and Andy put every picture from _every_ family gathering on the Internet, or that Courtney was trying to turn the face-painting into a weekend business. “She’s a professional, after all.”

“Oh. Good.” Sam visibly relaxed.

Dean bit his lip and turned his head away, pretending an interest in the scenery so that he wouldn’t look at his brother, because this?

This also wasn’t the time to tell Sam that he’d missed a barrette.  



End file.
